All the Fun of the Craft fair

There will aslso be a Few Limited addtions from The Soul Apothecary......

Shopping and gift buying is a far more enjoyable experience when you can engage with the actual people who made the goods.....and see the evidence of the hand that made the piece in the work. I find shopping malls a fairly spiritually anaemic way of shopping , worshipping at the altar of consumerism, where there is far more stuff than anyone could ever need that is ultimately destined to be thrown away, not cherished and kept and passed on.

Crux Craft Fair

I havn't posted for a while...largely because I've been busy making for Crux Craft Fair which is held this coming weekend in Rattery Village Hall, Devon. Encouraged by my dear friend Susie while we had coffee in her gorgeous treasure and delight filled kitchen last week, I was spurred on to post a new blog about what I'd been up to....... so here I am busy at my desk which I've had no time to tidy so there's not a great deal of space to work.

Some bits that will at some point make it into a piece....if I can let go of my attatchment to them!

Here's what I've beeen making, laptop cases, gift boxes, covered wishbones, tool cases, needle cases, cumberbunds,tags.....

Talisman Keepsake Boxes

Collections of treasures...

Nature Folk Art

I always love reading about what peope are listening to or what books they are reading so here are a few songs from 'The Soundtrack to my Weekend' just gone while I beavered away, and occasionally stopped for a bit of bedroom disco!....... Praise You . Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars.. Killing me Softly (Roberta Flack Version) You on my Mind and my Sleep. Driving away from Home. I've Just seen a Face. Black and Gold (Giullemots version). Moves Like Jagger (currently no1 on my bedroom disco chart) Waiting like Mad. Kiss (Prince not the band). There she goes my Beautiful World. Fly me to the Moon ( always the Frank Sinatra version) Crazy feeling. April Come She Will. None of us are Free. Wagon Wheel. A Hard Rains Gonna Fall. Mehendi Rachi. Leaving on a Jet Plane. You're my Thrill. In the Beautiful

Tomorrow. Diamond Dogs.

Early Influences...My Grandad Benji's tools and Louise Bourgeois

These are my Grandads tools, he died when I was five and my Nana gave me these when I was a teenager, I always loved them, I'm not sure why, the same reason I like scissors and needles I expect which I also dont know. He was an engineer for Rolls Royce. They used to be more shiny, I've neglected them a bit.

When I discovered the work of Louise Bourgeois I always liked this drawing of hers and realised why when my daughter Miracle bought me this tea towel recently from MOCA in LA, it's because of the association with the tools, so I got out the tools and photographed them and might just do a drawing or two myself in the style of LB...meanwhile I'll enjoy using the tea towel.

My personal favourite tools.......my scissors!

Patchwork Poems

Today I was reading about poetry forms and in particular cento, or "patchwork" poetry made up from lines of other peoples poems, which I think is actually harder to do than it sounds, and also 'found poems' which take random text and make a poem. For several years I've been making patchworks out of found objects and also paper images and texts. If I'm reading a magazine or newspaper and a caption of text leaps out at me I cut it out and save it to be incorporated at some later stage in to something I'm making.

So I was sorting through some images on discs today and on the computer and came across some pieces I made a few years ago and thought I'd post them. But first this qoute from Jim Jarmusch, which I always find so liberating and inspiring.... and I first read on Jessie's blog, wonderlustandstardust.blogspot.com

Just a few random bits that have been sitting on my desk gathering dust........... and getting a bit faded in fact

The piece below I made a few years ago as part of a degree module, making a cloth, not exactly, but at the time, and i still am, I was soooo inspired by the work of Mark Dion , and so rather than all these precious things gathering dust, and due to a lack of specimen display case in my ownership, I thought this might preserve them better.

Cut and stitched pieces of masking tape that had been pulled off a drawing board.....like a sampler of discarded marks.

Bits of things that I loved and experimenting with using image maker.

And this piece below was inspired by Japanese 'boro' (patchwork) which is usually varying shades of blue as it is made from indigo fabrics that have gone through several incarnations, and the occasional piece of red.

I'm reminded of this story from Daisaku Ikeda's 2009 Peace Proposal (from the Edo Period)

'One day, Doi picked up a discarded scrap of Chinese silk and handed it to one of his samurai retainers. Many laughed at this seemingly insignificant gesture. Several years later, when Doi asked the samurai about the piece of silk, he produced it, having carefully stored it. Doi praised the samurai and increased his annual stipend by 300 koku (the standard unit of wealth in Japan at the time). Doi then explained his actions.

This fabric was produced by Chinese farmers who plucked mulberry leaves to raise silkworms and spin thread. It came into the hands of Chinese traders, crossed over the great distance of sea to reach Japan, passed through the hands of the people of Nagasaki, was purchased by merchants in Kyoto or Osaka, and finally reached Edo [present-day Tokyo]. One cannot but be struck by the enormous human effort by which it reached us, and thus to discard it as a worthless scrap is a fearful thing inviting the rebuke of heaven.

To empathetically connect, through a scrap of fabric, with the lives of farmers working in mulberry fields in distant China--'

My Fantasy Wedding List (not exhaustive)

Since the Royal Wedding earlier this year and the very fact that wedding invitations keep appearing, through the letter box, in my inbox, by text, even my Dad's getting married! I got to thinking about wedding lists, not that any of the weddings I'm attending have wedding lists, but I think it was more because I was thinking about the wedding list of a Prince and Princess, what would you buy them , imagine all the dignitaries and Royals and celeberaties, they could splash out on pretty much anything, or give a piece of art or a collectable from thier own personal collection, just to curry favour with the newly weds.

So here are just a few of the things I thought would make great gifts or I'd rather like for myself, it dosn't end here because of course once I got started I got a bit carried away with myself....imagining who might perform the service, I allowed myself anyone from history, alive or dead...Rumi I thought would be a good choice....and then a couple of readings.....Ben Okri and

Rabindranath Tagore.

Joni Mitchell could sing a couple of tunes, backing vocals... numerous ladies of the canyon and the bridesmaids could be Isadora Duncan, Sonia Delaunay and Frida Kahlo and Tracey Emin.

The wedding Photographer would be Lee Miller and Catering inspired by Laura Esqivel and Peter Greenaway............. Just a few of the items that might be on the list.......as follows

This blanket by Sonia Delaunay.....

.......beautiful morrocan wool rug, my feet can hardly wait to sink into the thick pile....

A week at the Bathing House on Sharphan Estate, waking up to this view of the river Dart..

This sunset over Putsborough bay on a balmy evening in May......

This charming silver drinking straw (currently part of the V&A collection) when you drink from the straw the sails go round and the people go up and down the ladder..not sure how but apparently they do.
Also from the V&A this heavenly boat made of gold and shell....

A pair of Deer rattan chairs from Anthropologie....

And this gorgeous stove I photographed at a thrift store In Idyllwild last year.....to ship it back to England would probably have cost more than the stove.

Marlene Dumas would of course be a guest and her gift would be my favourite painting of hers. Ivory Black

These botanical prints from Whippet Grey...there's a whole series and I love them, especially I love colour on black.

A Laura Carlin bowl.....

Like I said...not exhuastive!

Hayford Hall....A Morning in Scents!

....and watching the Housemartins perform their dazzling aerial display just for me at 6am, I wonder, they must consider me so boring sometimes as I just stand and gaze, should I perhaps be performing for them. So often I find myself observing beauty, but what if it was observing me, what would it say, what would the places say about us? What if they loved us being there as much as we did?

I decided to bring a cut peony in from the garden with its so very subtle scent so that I could enjoy it all day long, everything was fresh with dew and the honeysuckle perfume as I opened the door took my breath away.......

I live nextdoor to Hayford Hall, where I discovered a couple of years ago, Peggy Guggenheim stayed for two summers in the 1930's.........It's all in this book, Hayford Hall, Hangovers, Erotics and Modernist Aesthetics.....all very headonic I'm sure!

The book has many journal entries written by Peggy Guggenheim that describe Hayford perfectly....not much has really changed....and also journal entries of the writers and artists she invited to stay here with her......

"Although situated on the edge of Dartmoor, Hayford Hall had it's own vast gardens which were half cultivated and half wild. There was one garden, a quarter mile long, with herbaceous borders. There were beautiful lawns, a well kept grass tennis court and two ponds covered with lilies where we swam, but on the whole one had the impression nature had not been tampered with, and that this place was still part of the moor. At nightfall thousands of rabbits scurried all over the grounds in all directions. We also had some woodland with a stream going through it; and another stream ran by the house.

The moor is hard to describe; it was so varied and so vast. it was hundreds of miles square and completely uninhabited except by wild ponies. The ground was strewn with bones and skeletons."

This is a photo from the book, not great quality, of Peggy Guggenheim standing in my courtyard with her two children, and below is one of my favourite quilts hanging in the exact doorway where they stood.

And some of my other quilts from my very humble collection......... Whenever I see an old quilt I get a feeling in my body somewhere between my heart and my stomach, you may know it, it's a mixture of delight, excitement and passion.

What I love about old quilts is the rawness of the stitch, I can almost see the hand working away, the dedication of hours and hours of neat little stitches, the patience...the slowness of the pace required and sweet focus of the person stitching, her presence almost saying, I'm in no hurry.

For the love of Leonora Carrington

Such inspiration I found as a young woman when I discovered the spirited and wonderful painter Leonora Carrington. Who recently died on May 25th age 94.

"During her coming-out ball, she plotted a short story (later published) in which she dressed a hyena in her trailing robes and sent the animal to the party in her place.

Soon after her coming-out ball at the Ritz hotel in London, Leonora Carrington, aged 20, went to see her father with some shocking news. She had fallen in love with the 46-year-old, married, surrealist painterMax Ernst. She intended to move to Paris with him and pursue a career as an artist. Her horrified father said two things to her: an injunction never again to darken his door, and a prediction that she would die penniless in a garret, as artists (in his opinion) inevitably did. "(from The Gaurdian Obituary)

I first came across her work by chance when I was living in London in 1991 and saw a retrospective of her work at the Serpentine Gallery and fell instantly in love with the work of this amazing woman.

This is one of my favourites, 'The House Opposite', this is just a small corner pictured here.

I love the creatures who inhabit her world, and ever since have often featured them in my dreams.

"Who art thou? White face'

Here she is with one of her beings...

And the awesomely beautiful Butterfly man sculpture

And this exqiusite creature with such delicate feet,tail and hands.

I think a pilgrimage to Mexico is very much in my plans now, to see all these amazing sculptures and who knows, maybe her house will become a museum!